■ And she believes he FOOLED ­parole chiefs into thinking he was a changed man by taking sewing and embroidery classes in jails.

Abbey said: “My father is a ­psychopath and he will always be a danger to women.

“He’s pulled the wool over the eyes of the Parole Board but he’s not changed a bit.”

Abbey was just 15 when she ­discovered her father had raped and sexually abused vulnerable women, including heroin addicts and a disabled girl, after offering them help while they were in custody at a police station in the centre of Newcastle upon Tyne.

He was given two life sentences at Newcastle crown court in 2011 after being found guilty of two rapes, three indecent assaults and misconduct.

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She said: “I know that I used to be a daddy’s girl and that we spent a lot of time together.

“When my mum and dad split he turned me against her. I now realise that she loved me and desperately wanted me to be with her and away from him.

"He told me she didn’t care, that she wanted nothing to do with me. I now realise the time that I had with him was not a normal relationship between a father and child.

"I remember him once in my ­bedroom becoming so angry that he punched a hole in the wall.

“On another occasion he was ­brushing my hair and because it was thick it was pulling and I cried out.

“He hit my hand so hard with the hairbrush that it drew blood.

“Now I can see that incidents like that were about him controlling me just as he had to control everyone.

“He carried real menace that went much further than parental authority. The fear I was living in wasn’t clear to me until I went to stay with my mum.

“It was supposed to be for just one weekend but I never went back.”

Abbey refused to see her father but he ­continued to phone. She said: “I didn’t trust anything he said and couldn’t feel c­omfortable around him.

Mitchell bombarded his daughter with messages from behind bars

“I think even as a child I had seen through him and had realised he was putting on an act.”

As a child Mitchell would take Abbey into the police ­station and let her sit in his patrol car.

But any pride she may once have felt in his career came crashing down at the age of 12. Mitchell’s ­colleagues from Northumbria Police ­arrived at the family home to inform her ­mother he was being ­investigated over a series of rapes. Abbey said: “I was devastated, disgusted and angry.

“I told my mum, ‘As far as I am concerned he is no longer my father’. I don’t claim to speak for any of those women, I can’t begin to think what they suffered. My first response after being told he was being released so early was anger for them.”

Last week the Sunday People revealed ­exclusive pictures showing Mitchell enjoying a carefree bike ride outside his home on the outskirts of Glasgow last week.

Fury over his release comes just months after the scandal of black cab rapist John Worboys, whose release was approved by the Parole Board but quashed by the High Court after protests from victims who never got to court.

His daughter says it's "frightening" he is now a free man

Following the uproar, the board is now obliged to give an explanation of parole ­decisions. But the change in the law happened after Mitchell was freed last September.

Abbey said: “It’s frightening that he now has the freedom to go anywhere he wants and ­continue to lie and manipulate people.

"It’s the victims we should be focusing on and in ­particular how to make sure that people in positions of authority like he was are never able to abuse that power again.”

A Parole Board spokesman said: “A panel directed the release of Stephen Mitchell ­following an oral hearing in September 2017.

"Parole Board decisions are solely focused on whether a prisoner would represent a significant risk to the public.

“The panel will have carefully looked at a whole range of evidence, including details of the original evidence and any evidence of ­behaviour change.

“We do that with great care and public safety is our number one priority.”